Insomnia
by DancingKirby
Summary: This is the revised version, which explains some stuff I forgot before. ManjoumexAsuka, prologue to the Kessha series.


1A/N: Well, here it is, revised and (hopefully) better.

I paid attention to all the criticism I got the first time. Some of it I just couldn't follow. It would ruin the message I was trying to send. However, I did try to make compromises wherever I could.

I know that some of these things may seem implausible, but I'm not the only one to write them or something similar. Ochodre in particular has been a big inspiration for these stories. It was from the fic "Black Sheep" that I got the idea of Asuka being submissive. This is not to bash Ochodre's work. On the contrary, it takes a very well-written fic to inspire me like that.

Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own anything except the laptop I'm writing this on. It was a birthday present from my parents, if you want to know.

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When Asuka first woke up, she thought it was morning. A bright light was shining through the window.

Then she looked at the clock and realized it was 3 A.M. The light was coming from the many beacons that shone around the Kessha Headquarters, which had formerly been known as the Obelisk Blue dorm. Asuka decided that these lights were annoying.

She mentally slapped herself. What was she thinking? Those lights were representative of the divinity that was the White Association. She shouldn't be thinking such treasonous thoughts.

Asuka tried to go back to sleep, but gave up after several minutes. She was still unaccustomed to this new room. Momoe and Junko may not have been the sharpest tools in the shed, but they were her friends. She had wanted to stay with them, but the White Association apparently had other plans.

These plans involved breaking many school rules into tiny pieces. But the White Association had never set much store by the school rules. The faculty ranted until turning blue in their faces about how girls and boys weren't allowed to share a dorm building, let alone a BED. But what Saiou-sama said went, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Asuka wasn't quite sure just how anybody could know what Saiou-sama wanted. After all, he hadn't been at the Academia since he enlightened Manjoume-kun.

But then she realized that Saiou-sama probably had his ways. After all, how could the Kessha function unless its founder had some way of communicating what he wanted from its members?

As much as Asuka hated to admit it, as much as she tried to deny that the Kessha had done anything wrong, she thought the school may have been right about this.

She felt as if she had been rushed into this. She had only been in the Kessha for two weeks, and was still getting used to living this new lifestyle.

That by itself was quite difficult. What made things even more complicated was being in this relationship with a boy she still didn't know too well.

They had not yet formed much of a bond beyond the physical kind. However, Asuka was trying her best to work with what resources she had to strengthen their emotional attachment.

So far, there hadn't been much improvement. Then again, it had only been two weeks. Asuka was sure they would have plenty of time to get to know each other as they helped fulfill the wondrous goals of their leader.

There were some more mundane concerns as well. Asuka missed having her own bed, where no one could hog all the blankets and make her wake up freezing cold. Or accidentally kick her in the shin while sleeping. Or touch her with cold feet.

Or repeatedly poke her right between her shoulder blades.

Asuka realized that last thing was occurring right now.

She couldn't help but sigh. She was getting tired of this. She and Manjoume-kun had been sharing a room for almost a week now, and Asuka had maybe gotten 30 total hours of sleep during that time. Asuka often didn't get a chance to sleep until late, and he often needed her in the dead of night. Sometimes, he just asked Asuka to turn up the heater a bit, or something along those lines. But more often than not, it was something...less innocent.

During the day, he would treat her with dignity, even aloofness. But that was just an act to throw the school staff and students off.

Not that Asuka minded, of course! She knew it was her obligation to keep him happy.

Nevertheless, this lack of sleep had made it so Asuka was starting to get dark circles under her eyes. She saw how her unenlightened former friends stared at her in pity, and that made her mad. She did not want that. Even if she got ZERO hours of sleep, she was still above pity.

The poking intensified until Asuka could ignore it no longer.

She turned around and said the first thing that she thought, which happened to be a sleepy "Not again..."

Asuka swore she could actually HEAR him smirking.

"No, I just want to talk this time." he said.

"About what?"

"Things."

They talked for several minutes about the White Association, but there was really nothing to say about it. It was all-powerful and the only group of people that knew what it was doing. End of story. They had been so wrapped up in the White Association, they had no time to pursue other interests. Therefore, they had nothing else to discuss.

This was exactly the problem, Asuka realized. How could they learn to love each other if they had nothing to even talk about?

An awkward silence lasted for several more minutes after that.

Finally, Asuka said, "You woke me up for THIS?"

Manjoume-kun simply said, "You've heard what Saiou-sama says about women having submissive roles..."

That was all he needed to say. In Japan, it was an unwritten rule that women were submissive. However, the Kessha had taken it a step further by literally writing that rule down.

Asuka realized Manjoume-kun was right. She had been out of line. Just last week, she would have punched him in the face for saying something like that. But now she had seen the light-quite literally.

She knew that everybody in the Kessha had a role to play, and if her role was an inferior one, so be it. The group was more important than the individuals.

Asuka apologized and said, "We should get back to bed. You know meditation is at six."

This fell on deaf ears. Remarkably enough, Manjoume-kun had already fallen back to sleep.

She tried to do the same, only to be jerked fully back into consciousness a half-hour later when all the blankets were yanked off her. Again.

Asuka rolled her eyes, which would most likely have dark circles under them again when she woke up.

She did not want to think about what Saiou-sama would say if she fell asleep during meditations. She was already on probation for doing that just once. An anonymous Kessha member had caught Asuka nodding off and reported her.

This was going to be a long rest of the night...But it would all work out in the end. Asuka was sure of it.

With such a good and just group as the Hikari no Kessha, how could it not work out?

All it needed was some time...


End file.
